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They say two heads are better than one, but a recent study led by
associate professor of organizational behavior Markus Baer at
Washington University in St. Louis’ Olin Business School suggests
the success of a brainstorming session may depend on whether
you’re a man or a woman.

While it’s typically assumed women are more collaborative than
men when working in teams, it appears women’s advantage is only
effective in non-competitive environments. Forcing teams to go
head-to-head results in greater creative output from men, but
causes women to shut down and contribute less. The more intense
and cut-throat the competition, the less women contribute.

Baer says gender stereotypes may play a role in women losing
their edge in competitive environments. “The same stereotypes
that suggest that women are very collaborative suggest that they
are less likely to do well under competition,” he says. “If women
think of themselves as being less competitive and assume that the
world thinks they shouldn’t perform as well [in competition],
they’re less engaged in the activity because the belief is ‘this
is not what we’re good at, this is not what other people expect
us to be good at’ so they lose a bit of their mojo.”

Men, on the other hand, have been taught to thrive under
competition, causing them to react more positively when a
competitive element is introduced to a creative brainstorming
session. Women simply don’t see competition as motivating, so
they don’t take it as seriously as men.

This doesn’t mean competition has to completely be eliminated
from workplaces. In fact, Baer says a little friendly competition
can be a great way to promote teamwork and bring people together.
Competitions can even be fun. However, he suggests companies that
want to incorporate the element of competition in a
gender-friendly way may need to alter the way competitions are
implemented.

“The way we initially thought of designing competitions was
inspired by the way we think about the business world, and it’s
mostly influenced by male stereotypes,” he says. Avoiding the
negative characteristics of competition that cause women to
participate less while maintaining competition’s positive
attributes means altering the definition of competition from a
cut-throat climate to the more relaxed, team-friendly type.

1. Multiple-dimension competitions. While
competitions that pit teams against one another and result in
only one winner put women at a disadvantage, Baer says
competitions that offer multiple prizes on multiple dimensions
may be more female-friendly. He suggests providing prizes for the
most innovative solution and the most collaborative team, for
example.

2. Inter-team collaboration. While in
cut-throat competition, teams typically withhold information from
one another, are discouraged from sharing ideas and may even
undermine each other in an effort to win, providing opportunities
for cross-team collaboration may help encourage women to
participate. The way to incentivize cross-collaboration, Baer
says, is to provide recognition to teams who assist others. If
one team is able to advance in their solution thanks to input
from another team, providing recognition to the supportive team
helps to eliminate that raw competitiveness that works against
women.

3. Progressive tournaments. Breaking down
the competition into steps and providing rewards along the way
can help to make the competitive environment more appealing to
women. Rather than having one large prize, provide several
smaller prizes for different intervals.